766 
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» & 



III 



ADDRESS 



OF 



PRESIDENT WILSON 



TO THE 



ASSOCIATED ADVERTISING CLUBS 
PHILADELPHIA, PA. 



JUNE 29, 1916 



^^^4 



WASHINGTON 
1916 







D. of L). 
AUG 7 1916 



oo 



i 



ADDRESS TO THE ASSOCIATED ADVERTISING CLUBS, PHILADELPHIA, 

PA., JUNE 29, 1916. 



Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Associated Advertising Clubs, 

Ladies and Gentlemen : 

You will understand that I have not come here to make an ex- 
tended address. I do not need to explain to you the circumstances 
which have made it impossible that I should prepare an extended 
address, but I count myself very fortunate to be able to leave my 
duties at Washington long enough to face this interesting company 
of men who have the very fine conception that it is their duty to 
lift the standards and ideals of their profession, 

I understand, gentlemen, that you have associated yourselves to- 
gether in order to promote candor and truth in the advertisement of 
your business. I wish very much, gentlemen, that candor and truth 
might always be the standard of politics as well as the standard of 
business. I want to challenge your attention for a moment to this 
aspect of your activities. I do not see how a man can devote himself 
to candor and truth in the promotion of a particular business with- 
out studying the life of the great nation to whom he addresses his 
advertising. I do not see how a man can fail, having established the 
horizon of his business where the great hills of truth lie, to lift his 
eyes to the great multitude of laboring men and striving women who 
constitute a great nation like ours, and in the very act of addressing 
them get in his own consciousness some part of the impulse of their 
life. You can not commend your business to people that j^ou do not 
understand, and you can not understand the people of the United 
States without wishing to serve them. 

So I come to you with this thought : America is at a point, gentle- 
men, where it is more than ever necessary that she should understand 
her own ideals not only, but be ready to put them into action at any cost. 
It is one thing to entertain fine principles and another thing to make 
them work. It is one thing to entertain them in the formulae of 
words like the splendid words which were uttered and gave distinc- 
tion to this ancient and historic building behind me, but it is another 
thing to do what those same men did, make those words live in the 

(3) 

51538—16 



action ,of their lives. And America is summoned in each new genera- 
tion to renew not only the pledges that those men made, but to renew 
the example Avhich they gave to the world. 

I am not interested, and I beg that you will believe me when I say 
that I never have been interested, in fighting for myself, but I am 
immensely interested in fighting for the things that I believe in, and 
so far as they are concerned I am a challenger to all comers. It is 
important, therefore, since I am in fighting mood, to let you know 
what are some of the things that I do believe in. 

In the first place, I believe, and I summon you to show your be- 
lief in the same thing, that it is the duty of every American in 
ever}i;hing that he does, in his business and out of it, to think first, 
not of himself or of any interest which he may be called upon to 
sacrifice, but of the country which we serve. "America first " means 
nothing until you translate it into what you do. So I believe most 
profoundly in the duty of every American to exalt the national con- 
sciousness by purifying his own motives and exhibiting his own 
devotion, 

I believe, in the second place, that America, the country that we put 
first in our thoughts, should be ready in every point of policy and 
of action to vindicate at whatever cost the principles of liberty, of 
justice, and of humanity to which we have been devoted from the 
first. [Cheers.] You cheer the sentimen^^ut do jou realize what it 
means? It means that you have not only goFw^Jie just to your fellow 
men, but that as a nation you have got to be just to other nations. It 
comes high. It is not an easy thing to do. It is easy to think first 
of the material interest of America, but it is not easy to think first 
of what America, if she loves justice, ought to do in the field of 
international affairs. I believe that at whatever cost America should 
be just to other peoples and treat other peoples as she demands 
that they should treat her. She has a right to demand that they treat 
her with justice and respect, and she has a right to insist that they 
treat her in that fashion, but she can not with dignity or with self- 
respect insist "upon that unless she is willing to act in the same 
fashion toward them. That I am ready to fight for at any cost 
to myself. 

Then, in the third place, touching ourselves more intimately, my" 
fellow^ citizens, this is what I believe: If I understand the life of 
America, the central principle of it is this, that no small body of 
persons, no matter how influential, shall be trusted to determine the 
policy and development of America. You know what you want 
in your business. You want a fair field and no favor. You want 
to be given the same opportunity that other men have, not only to 
make known what you liaA^e to sell, but to sell it under as favorable 
conditions as anybody else. The principle of the life of America 



is that she draws her vitality, not from small bodies of men who 
ma}^ wish to assume the responsibility of guiding and controlling 
her, but from the great body of thinlcing and toiling and planning 
men from whom she draws her energy and vitality as a nation. 
I believe, and this is the reason I am a Democrat, not merely with 
a big " D " but with a little " d " — I am all kinds of a democrat, so 
far as I can discover — but the root of the whole business is this, 
that I believe in the patriotism and energy and initiative of the 
average man. Some men say they believe in it, but when they act, 
they show that they do not. They show that they think the only 
advice that it is safe to take is their advice. [Voice in crowd : " Oh, 
you Teddy ! "] 

I was not referring to any individual, but I could give you an 
interesting and a very short list of a group of individuals who have 
that opinion, namely, that it is not safe for the United States to 
escape from their control. I feel perfectly safe in the hands of 
the average body of my fellow citizens. You are bound to feel 
safe in their hands. If they do not believe in you, you can not 
sell anything. If they do not believe in you, you can not conduct 
your business. Your vitality comes from them to you; it does not 
go from you to them. The theory of government which I decline 
to subscribe to is that the vitality of the nation comes out of closeted 
councils where a few men determine the policy of the country. 

So, gentlemen, I feel at home in this company, not because I ad- 
vertise, but because I have got principles that I am perfectly willing 
to expose to the public view, and because I want to express my sym- 
pathy with, not only, but my admiration for a body of men who 
think it is worth while to get together in order to tell the truth. The 
only thing that ever set any man free, the only thing that ever set 
any nation free, is the truth. A man that is afraid of the truth is 
afraid of the law of life. A man that does not love the truth is in 
the way of decay and of failure, and I believe that if you will just 
let the vitality that is in you and the enthusiasm that is in you run 
beyond the confines of the businesses that you may be interested in, 
you will presently feel that infinite reward, as if the red blood of a 
whole nation came surging back into your own veins. 

Can you imagine, my fellow countrymen, a more inspiring thing 
than to belong to a free nation and make your way among men every- 
one of whom has the right and the opportunity to say what he thinl^s. 
Criticism does not hurt anybody. I heard an old politician once 
say to his son, " John, don't bother your head about lies and slanders ; 
they will take care of themselves, but if you ever hear me denying 
anything, you may make up your mind that it is so." When you 
see a man wincing under criticism, you may know that something 
hit him that was so. And, therefore, when they are saying the 



things that are not true, there is no credit in keeping your head 
and not minding it. I have such an inveterate confidence in the 
ultimate triumph of the truth that I feel, with old Doctor Oliver 
Wendell Holmes, that the truth is no invalid, and you need not mind 
how roughly you handle her. She has got a splendid constitution 
and she will survive every trial and every labor. 

I have come, therefore, as I have abundantly shown you, not to 
make a formal speech — if I could show you some of the things I 
have been obliged to do before I came here, you would know that I 
could not possibly make up a speech — but merely to show my pro- 
found interest in a body of men who are not only devoted to business 
but devoted to ideals. Business is all right so long as it is not sordid, 
and it cannot be sordid if it is shot through with ideals. A man, no 
matter how humble his business, can hold his head up among the 
princes of the world if, as they ought to do, he will think of himself 
as the servant of the people and not as their master, as one who 
would serve and not as one who would govern. 

I congratulate you, my fellow citizens, upon the ideals of a pro- 
fession which can lower or exalt business, as you choose, and which 
you have chosen to employ for its exaltation. I came away from 
Washington to look into your faces and get some of the enthusiasm 
which I always get when I come away from officialdom and touch 
hand to hand with great bodies of the free American people. 



o 



Gaylord Eros. 

Makers 

Syracuse, N. Y, 

PIT. JAN. 21, 1908 









E.'- 




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